Jaipur : The BJP has won Rajasthan’s urban local body elections, securing 4,179 of the 10,235 declared wards, against the Congress’s 3,613. The BJP’s seat share also rose from 35.7% in the previous election cycle (2019 to 2021) to 40.8%, while the Congress slipped from 40.7% to 35.3%.
While the BJP’s victory lies in its victories in a large number of wards and its lead over the Congress, the warning signs are clearly visible in the municipal corporations in the districts of Bharatpur, Pali, Ajmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur and Alwar, where the party failed to secure a majority. All the seven corresponding Lok Sabha seats went to the BJP in the 2024 General Elections.
Several of them are BJP strongholds and are associated with the party’s most prominent leaders, including that of Rajasthan CM Bhajan Lal Sharma, state BJP president Madan Rathore, former CM and BJP national vice-president Vasundhara Raje and Union ministers Arjun Ram Meghwal, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Bhupender Yadav and Bhagirath Choudhary. Independents, meanwhile, won 2,273 wards, but their share remained virtually unchanged at 22.2%, compared with 22.4% in the 2019-21 election cycle.
The BJP’s urban constituency, built from the Jana Sangh era and consolidated by the BJP from the 1980s onward, has included traders, shopkeepers, Bania-Vaishya and Jain communities, sections of the salaried middle class and voters connected to the RSS network in Rajasthan. Their support has helped make Rajasthan’s cities BJP strongholds, even when the party has faced attacks in rural constituencies.
A direct comparison of the two contests is complicated as delimitation before the 2026 polls added 2,770 wards. Nevertheless, the BJP’s rise from 2,666 of 7,474 wards to 4,179 of 10,235 declared wards represents a five-percentage-point improvement in seat share. The Congress’s seat share fell by approximately the same number. Urban Rajasthan has traditionally provided the BJP with a dependable political base. A defensible conclusion is that loyalties have weakened selectively, depending on the candidate, performance of local administration, conditions of civic infrastructure and equations concerning factional.
It won clear majorities in urban local bodies in Jaipur, Kota, Udaipur and Bhilwara, but only four of the 10 municipal corporations. Meanwhile, the Congress won Bikaner, which saw a massive mobilisation against the BJP, led by Shri Karni Sena, over the now-stayed UGC caste-equity norms.Independents have captured Bharatpur (Rajasthan CM Bhajan Lal’s home turf) while Municipal Corporation polls in major cities like Ajmer, Alwar, Jodhpur and Pali produced fractured verdicts.
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